FIF CAT Tech Specs Working Group and FIF CAT Committee. The FIF CAT Working Group reviewed the issues discussed during the November 3 FINRA CAT Weekly Industry Testing Checkpoint call, including various exchange linkage error scenarios and guidelines for firms on when to open and update cases with FINRA CAT. The Working Group discussed various issues raised by FIF members, including obtaining guidance on reporting for Manning rule compliance where a firm trades as principal, inconsistent OATS and CAT exchange lists, various exchange linkage error scenarios, challenges with the OSCI...

US hedge fund Citadel and market maker Citadel Securities will open a new office in Paris in a bid to extend the institution’s longstanding presence in Europe, according to a story in The Trade news. The new office, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is due to open in the first half of 2021 and will be the firm’s eighteenth location globally across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Both Citadel and Citadel Securities have longstanding histories of operating in Europe. Citadel opened its first European office in London in 1999 and operates in equities, fixed income and macro,...

Credit Suisse has automated the post-trade operations of its institutional equities trading business in Canada after going live on Torstone Technology’s platform. The Swiss investment bank has completed the implementation of the Torstone SaaS platform, which supports high volumes of straight through processing (STP) for multiple asset classes on a cloud-based infrastructure. Credit Suisse has now consolidated its processes with Torstone’s service model with a single code base and monthly upgrades to reduce the total cost of ownership, a key factor in the bank’s decision to implement the...

Bloomberg has expanded the credit risk datasets on its Terminal with the addition of data from Credit Benchmark to support credit assessments and predictive models during market volatility for users. The anonymized consensus data from Credit Benchmark includes risk views of large financial institutions globally. It will be available on the Terminal and for license alongside existing credit risk datasets and risk indicators on the system to assess the credit quality or risk of default of counterparties or companies.  With Credit Benchmark data on the Terminal, Bloomberg said it can also...

FIF CAT Tech Specs Working Group and FIF CAT Committee: The FIF CAT Working Group and Committee participated on a call where FINRA provided guidance on the October 26 compliance dates for resolving equities and options interfirm, exchange and TRF linkage validations by 8 am on T+3. The Working Group continued a detailed review of the CAT Phase 2d requirements, including manual workflows for receiving and routing options and multi-leg orders. The Working Group and Committee reviewed various issues raised by FIF members, including aggregated orders where one of two component orders is...

During the past week, FIF featured the following spotlight presentations: FIF Data and Technology Committee (October 28). John Ramsay of IEX reviewed an IEX proposal for a new offset-peg order type. FIF Tax Information Reporting Working Group (October 29). Stevie Conlon, Robyn Lang, Robert Schwaba and Anna Vayser of Wolters Kluwer discussed recently-issued regulations under section 1446(f) of the Internal Revenue Code relating to the withholding tax imposed on the sale, exchange or redemption of a partnership interest held by a foreign person. FIF Front Office Committee (November 2)....

Trading technology provider Itiviti has confirmed plans to transfer its entire platform to the cloud using a hybrid private-public strategy with Amazon Web Services (AWS) according to a story in The Trade news. The cloud transformation will be rolled out in phases with the first set of applications running in the cloud due to go-live by the end of this year. As well as AWS, Itiviti will also use Data Canopy and Ingram Micro for the revamp of its platform. Once complete, the transition will allow Itiviti’s clients to scale computing costs and reach more services through the vendor’s...

Integral, a leading FX technology provider, announced that their long-established partnership with Refinitiv has been extended on a multi-year basis. The renewed partnership sees Integral and Refinitiv continuing to work together to ensure that customers of Refinitiv’s multi-dealer platform can continue to use Integral’s price engine technology in a seamless way. Integral’s pricing engine infrastructure provides the tools for market participants to reliably auto-price their clients and seamlessly construct and distribute prices via the FXall platform.  The extended partnership benefits...

Crypto custody provider Fidelity Digital Assets is offering its technology to a Singapore-based startup as part of a new offering catering to wealthy investors in Asia, according to a Bloomberg report. As part of the arrangement, Stack Funds will leverage Fidelity's platform to custody digital assets on behalf of Asia's high-net-worth investors. Stack Funds, for its own part, will cover monthly audits and insurance for potential clients. Fidelity first made its push outside the U.S. in January. The move by Fidelity is significant as it's one of the first public examples...